Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Knowing little or nothing about Bitcoin myself, I went looking for more information and found this Wikihow on "How to use Bitcoin". According to that article
Originally Posted By: Wikihow
Since there are only 21 million bitcoins that will ever be created, each bitcoin should rise in value over time
Basic economic theory then kicks in and would hold that given a limited or fixed supply of an item any increase in demand will be accompanied by a corresponding increase in the value or cost of the item.

According to the Bitcoin Calculator the current price of a bitcoin is $1666.45 USD. That yields the total Bitcoin economy at a value of $34,995,450,000 USD. The answer to your question then becomes, will Wanacry ransom payments rise to a level sufficient to have an effect on a $35 Billion dollar economy. (That places Bitcoin as roughly the 96th largest economy in the world and larger than 115 or 116 nations.) I will leave it to you to guesstimate what if any effect Wanacry would have on the Bitcoin economy.

Thanks for the link, although, as you said, it provides only a framework, not an answer to my question, nor does Bitcoin's Recent Price Dive: Did WannaCry Malware Cause It? do a much better job of answering it.

And Bitcoin Mining, which apparently explains from where Bitcoins come is about as clear as mud: if I'm understanding it, no entity owns the unissued Bitcoins, rather they're "prizes" in some sort of contest. confused

Can anybody clarify or expand?

Thanks.

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